Year: 2011

Maybe it’s just time to look for a new job.

Dave

pushing a boulderI spent the last two days at the MarketingProfs B2B Forum in Boston. As always, it was an excellent event filled with great information and smart people willing to share their experience and expertise. In addition to leading a workshop and participating in the final wrap-up panel, I volunteered to do some “one-on-one therapy” sessions with conference attendees on the topic of enterprise social media structure, policies and integration “you know, the stuff we write about in The Executive’s Guide to Enterprise Social Media Strategy“.

I spoke with half a dozen folks and was happily surprised at how far along they were. A year ago, many of the conversations around enterprise social media were pretty basic: Who should “own” it? Do we need to be on Facebook? But these folks came to me with very specific questions about staffing, generating and sharing content, tracking results and other nuts-and-bolts stuff. It was great fun.

I also spoke with several very smart folks who I really couldn’t help very much. Everything I suggested, they’d tried. They were intelligent and adventurous and read the right blogs and the right books and went to the right conferences. We struggled to come up with ideas to address their particular problems. In the end it came down, essentially, to “I work for a company “or a boss” that just doesn’t care or get it no matter how much I show them what our competitors are doing, or what the industry best practices are, or the conversations about our brand we’re ignoring.”

What do you do with that?

I know a lot of people in the enterprise social media world who have pushed similar boulders up similar hills and had great successes. They are people whose names you may know, and a lot are mentioned in our book, like Zena Weist and Bert DuMars and Nichole Kelly and Chris Moody and Lee Aase. “And some of them have changed jobs since the book was published.”

If you’re the person inside your company who has been pushing the social media boulder up the hill, I want you to know three things:

1. There aren’t many people like you.
2. Eventually the people standing in your way will know you’re right.
3. You are more valuable now than you’ve ever been.

It’s up to you, obviously, to decide how much boulder-pushing you want to do. Maybe you like your boulder. Maybe you like your hill. Maybe I’ve taken this analogy too far.

But if you’re beating your head against a wall and feeling like you’re failing, I’ll bet you’re not. You may think you’re doing it wrong, and I promise you, you’re not. If you’re thinking you could finally break through if you just worked harder or smarter or longer, that’s probably not it, either.

Maybe it’s just time to look for a new job.

image by Krikit

Remove the word “Facebook” and no one would care

Dave

By now you’ve probably heard the story of the woman in the Netherlands who got a tattoo on her arm showing the faces of all her Facebook friends. And by now you’ve probably also heard that it’s a hoax. Many of the more than two million people who viewed the video on YouTube commented to express their views on getting a permanent reminder of a passing fad.

Let’s try a little exercise. Read the following sentence:

“A woman in the Netherlands got a tattoo of all her Facebook friends on her arm and it became an international news story.”

Now read this one:

“A woman in the Netherlands got a tattoo of all her friends on her arm and it became an international news story.”

I don’t think so.

I live in a town where I see odder tattoos nearly every day. I remember seeing a guy years ago who had tattoos all over both legs, including a crossed knife and fork, and a cow hiding behind a giant piece of broccoli. When I tended bar in London last century, I saw a young punk on the King’s Road with “GLASGOW” tattooed across his forehead. “”So where are you from? Oh, never mind.””

In the annals of tattooing, getting your friends’ faces on your arm could actually be considered charming and sweet. But add the word “Facebook” and it’s a scandal and an outrage.

I’m immersed in this every day so I get tired of the hype machine that tacks “social media” or “Facebook” onto what are essentially phenomena that have always existed. Houses got robbed, people got stalked, photos got misused and people got fired for saying stupid things long before social media came along. Unfortunately, it’s the hype machine that plants the idea in people’s minds “including executives of enterprise companies who should be getting value out of social media” that social media is evil and dangerous.

Social media is just another way of communicating. It’s a set of tools and, to a certain extent, a philosophy of sharing and openness. But it’s not a religion. It’s not a political movement. One day the novelty will have worn off, the fears will have subsided and social media tools will be just a normal part of our lives, like the telephone and the Internet.

“But then what will we blog about?”

News flash: brands are people, too

Dave

roadsign for Fail RoadPeter Shankman has a post today about an ill-conceived comment posted to 7-11’s Facebook page. I haven’t researched it to find out what their reaction is, but we can guess based on past experience. They will issue an apology, and someone might even get fired.

Peter’s blog is full of comments from people discussing whether the comment is offensive, whether we’re being too PC and what this slip-up says about 7-11’s social media policies and corporate voice.

The issue raises lots of questions, but as to the question of “How did this happen?”, I can answer that one:

A person made a joke in an effort to amuse other people. It didn’t work.

Don’t suppose that’s ever happened to you?

Folks, we’ve got to get used to this. If we want brands to use social media and be more edgy, more interesting, more topical and more timely, they are going to screw up every now and then. If every screwup becomes a new target for America’s favorite pastime of self-righteous indignation, brands are going to stop trying.

Do we want every company communication in social media to be boring, bland and homogenized? If so, then let’s keep attacking them for every misstep.

When I worked for a small independent record label and music distribution company, I accidentally sent a newsletter to one of our artist lists where I got the name of his most recent album wrong. I immediately sent a follow-up email apologizing for the mistake and blaming it on a long day.

In the interim, at least three people wrote back calling me some variation of an idiot who deserved to lose his job for this grievous error. One of them, on reading my apology, wrote back again. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I’ve had a long day, too. There was no need for me to be so unpleasant.”

What happened to change his mind? My first email, in his mind, came from a faceless company. My second came from a person, and he could empathize with the idea of a person making a mistake.

Keep that in mind the next time some corporate tweet or status update rubs you the wrong way. It probably wasn’t written by a committee, but by a person trying his or her best.

image by fireflythegreat

Some social media customer service tips for my contractor

Dave

wow, those are some beautiful toolsWe’re having a lot of work done on our house, including turning our attic into my awesome home office/aerie/fortress of solitude. I like our contractor very much, but now that the work has stretched past two months, it’s starting to wear me down. Earlier this week we were talking about the schedule and without thinking, I said, “I’m really tired of having you guys here.” His very reasonable response was, “Yep, it’s not a convenience.”

I started thinking about the many little ways that this experience has been inconvenient, and some of them could be alleviated somewhat with freely available web tools. So, if you’re a contractor, here are some things you could do that I’m sure your customers would appreciate. They may not all involve social media per se, but the general principles are there.

1. I never know who’s going to be here when.

Once or twice a week, usually when one of us is on our way out the door, the contractor will tell me the upcoming schedule. I don’t write it down, so I certainly don’t remember it. How about putting the schedule in a Google Doc and updating it daily? Or a shared Google Calendar? That would require some extra time at the end of the day on the contractor’s part to update all the schedules for all jobs, but it would be well appreciated.

You could also create a Posterous blog just for this job, and the contractor, subs and homeowner could update that via email. Or a private Facebook group.

2. I don’t know who all these people are.

In the course of our various endeavors, there have been roughly 1,012 tool belt wearers in and out of the house. I have been introduced to all of them, but I’m afraid I’ve forgotten a lot of their names. “Although, given that this is the Chapel Hill area, I’ve known a few of them for 15+ years and one is a guitar player famous in the indie rock world”.

Take a picture of the folks who are going to be working on my house with your cell phone, and post them somewhere. They could go on the Posterous blog or the Facebook group, too.

3. I’m not always here to answer questions, and even when I am, they don’t always get asked.

I spent 20 minutes talking to the painting contractor on Monday about what colors went where. On Wednesday his guys showed up without him, and painted one “thankfully small” hallway the wrong color. Again, how about a Google Doc with all the information that anyone can refer to?

4. How can I recommend you to my network if you’re not online?

Again, I’ve been very happy overall with our contractor. I would happily recommend him to my friends. If he had a Facebook page for his business, I would go there and like it, and leave a positive comment. But he doesn’t. I know, like everybody, he’s busy running his business and trying to have a life. But the hour that it would take him to set up a basic page would be time well spent, especially in this tech-heavy, relationship-oriented community.

There are lots of other tools that Google makes available for small and local business, and I’m finding I search for a lot more than just restaurants on Yelp. Plus, small businesses benefit from the Google juice they get from having searchable content on a blog or videos on YouTube, just like big businesses. There’s an electrician in town with a white truck that says www.chapelhillelectrician.com on one side and www.carrboroelectrician.com on the other. That’s a guy who understands the value of SEO to a local business.

But we’ll leave it at that for now. What suggestions would you have for local service providers that would make you a happier customer?

image by geishaboy500

I’m joining Radian6 as Director of Social Strategy

Dave

bunch of guys around a cool planeThese career-transition blog posts seem to have a certain structure to them:

  1. High-minded statement about the industry, life, careers, challenges, fulfillment, etc.
  2. Something about how much the author has always admired a person and/or a company.
  3. The reveal: Hey! Guess what? I’m going to work for that company!
  4. Job description that highlights all the awesome stuff and ignores the mundane, and generally gives a sense that this new job is not only the best job ever in the history of jobs, but ultimately preferable to being a rock star, racing car driver, astronaut or independently wealthy.
  5. Brief statement about how the author’s current job is awesome and how he or she loves it and is of course highly successful there, but the new job is just that little bit awesomer.
  6. Onward, to the future!

You’ve already seen the title, so I’m going to skip to #3:

Hey, guess what? I’m going to Radian6, as Director of Social Strategy. I’ll be working with Radian6 customers to understand how social media in general and Radian6 in particular integrate within the enterprise. It’s a natural evolution of the work I did as Social Media Manager for SAS, and what I’ve learned working with clients at New Marketing Labs. Plus, you know, I did write a book about enterprise social media strategy.

And, as a bonus, I’ll be working with Amber Naslund, who has been not only a friend but also an exemplar of the right way to walk the talk, social media-wise. I can’t count the number of times I have referred to her and the community team at Radian6 when seeking real-world examples of effective community engagement for business.

I’ve had the chance over the last few weeks to speak with and meet quite a few of my future colleagues, and have been universally impressed. I saw them in action last week in Boston, at Radian6’s first-ever user conference. Not only was there a great vibe among Radian6 staff and customers, plus a lot of buzz about the Salesforce.com acquisition and announcements of new Radian6 features, but it was just a really fun, informative, worthwhile conference. I’ve been to a lot of social media conferences and a lot of user group events, and this one set a new standard for integrating what the customer wants to learn with what the company wants to share. And I still hate that I missed the party.

I’ve had quite an experience at New Marketing Labs and learned a lot. There are some great folks there and I will miss them. It was a great opportunity and I wouldn’t have missed it.

And now…

Onward, to the future!

image by NASA

What do bears eat?

Dave

The Boy: “Daddy, what do bears eat?”
Me: “Hmm. They eat fish. And honey. Oh, and berries.”
The Boy: “Blueberries?”
Me: “Sure. All kinds of berries: blueberries, blackberries, boysenberries…”
The Boy: “BEARS EAT BOYS AND BERRIES?!”